Monsters & Fairytales

by Rebecca Suzanne

  “No, I don’t. Where is my purse?”

  I wasn’t sure if I could trust him. He seemed to be putting way too much effort into all of this. It wasn’t likely. I’m not the type to just wander off with a stranger, or even invite a guy in. Heck, I'd turned him down earlier. Why would I say yes to this Sebastian fellow?

  “Are you honestly questioning me?”

  “You’re still not answering! How do I know that Sebastian guy wasn’t a friend of yours you had drug me, so you could look like the good guy?!”

  “Why would I do that?”

  He was surprisingly calm .

  “I don’t know, you’re the mastermind here.”

  “Stay here and I’ll go get your purse.”

  “How do I know you won’t be back with more of your ‘friends’?”

  He picked my phone back up and handed it to me. He had dialed 911.

  “If anything looks suspicious, anything at all, when I’m coming back down those stairs, dial it. If I’m not back in five minutes, send the call.”

  “Okay!”

  I had no idea how to take any of this. My head was hurting. I squeezed between my eyes. The pressure was getting heavier. I sat up and water splattered on my lap. Had I just drooled? I looked down and saw blood on my white shirt. I felt it above my lip. I wiped under my nose frantically and jumped up when I saw the blood on my hand. I felt dizzy.

  “Okay, looks like we’re going to the hospital right now.” Joe said as he caught me. I thought he had left?

  He laid me back down on the couch and took my phone. He pressed the send button and took off down the hall.

  His voice got louder. He was talking to an operator frantically. I could hear him giving out my address. I had to remind myself he lived in the same building as me so that’s how he knew. Spike wandered over and rested his head next to mine.

  “Okay, let me change.”

  I sat up and got a head rush.

  “Seriously?”

  Joe just stared at me. He had the phone on his ear. I imagined it was much how I looked to him when he was knocking on my window.

  “I’m not going covered in blood.” I said pointing to the spots all over the shirt.

  Joe finished talking on the phone and then walked over to me.

  “We’re leaving, c’mon.”

  This guy really wanted to help me. I wanted to trust him. I wish I knew why.

  “Okay, but-”

  “Mirabelle, you’re going to a hospital where people defecate all over themselves, a little blood on your shirt is not going to be an issue. Please.” He begged.

  “Fine.” I snorted.

  “You do need shoes, though.”

  He looked down at my feet. I looked down, too. They were very dirty. What had I been doing?

  “Oh.” I sighed.

  I got up and went into my room. I opened my closet and a few of my shirts ruffled, an odd smell lingered on my nostrils. I had to catch myself on the doorframe. What was I doing? Shoes. Right. I slipped on some zebra striped flats and walked out.

  “Come on!” Joe called from the foyer.

  I could only go so fast holding my head back. When I made it to him, he handed me my purse. I had to give him credit; he hadn’t been lying about the purse. Or he was just really crafty and had known where I had it in the house, and had acted like he just got it from his apartment. More important things, Mirabelle.

  “Tell me again why are we going to a hospital?” I asked.

  He was walking way too fast. I was going to fall again. He was halfway down the stairs and I was still fumbling trying to get my keys out. Wait, if my keys were in the purse, how’d I even get inside? Were they back inside?

  “Mirabelle you may have a concussion and you’re bleeding from your nose.” He said, rushing back up to me.

  He grabbed my arm and pulled me back out of the house.

  “Okay, but isn’t the whole point of calling an ambulance to wait for them to get here to take me to the hospital?”

  I skidded my feet to try to stay as close to the apartment as possible. I really didn’t see the emergency being so important that I had to leave my door open and unlocked. What about Spike?

  “Yeah, but we can’t hear them from in here. It’s best to be waiting out on the curb. Everything will be fine.”

  He tugged me one more time out of the doorway; this time with a bit of force.

  “My keys!”

  “Whoops.”

  He stopped moving finally and smiled. He mouthed 'Sorry.', and then allowed me to close and lock my door. He was off again in no time down the stairs. When he finally looked back and saw that I hadn’t moved at all, his shoulders dropped.

  “Going as fast as I can. Nose is bleeding here.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Okay, sorry. Here, let me guide you.”

  I walked down the stairs with him closely at my side. I had to admit, I was feeling light headed. Maybe he wasn’t overreacting for calling me an ambulance. After all, he couldn’t take me himself, considering he drove a motorcycle. Wait, how had I known that?

  “They’re here.”

  Joe jumped down the last few steps. He ran to the door and held it open for me. The ambulance stopped in front of the building. How humiliating. The back doors opened and an EMT got out. She asked if I was Mirabelle Frances. I nodded my head. She and Joe helped me up into the back of the truck. When I was in, it started moving.

  “Sorry.” He whispered.

  “It’s okay. Thank you for helping me.” I smiled.

  When he smiled, something familiar about him drove my stomach into flutters. I couldn’t quite pinpoint it. Maybe it was just his good looks. I was starting to blush. He noticed me staring at him. I leaned my head back again to make the blood stop.

  “You starting to remember anything?” He asked.

  I could see his head just barely out of my peripheral. He was trying to lean up and make some sort of eye contact.

  “No, sorry. I just- I feel like I know you a bit more than just from that day I fell face first on the floor.”

  “A whole day of falling on your face, huh? That could be the reason, ‘ya know?” The EMT smiled. “Let’s take a look at this.”

  She moved my hand and the blood started coming out again. She took a napkin and squeezed some more. She was counting to herself. The pressure hurt but I didn’t say anything. She let go and looked. I didn’t feel anything. Then she wrapped something on my arm. I didn’t want to move. I was afraid gravity would get me.

  “I only fell once.” I said to her.

  “Three times, actually. You fell into the fountain first.” Joe so lovingly reminded me.

  “Has she been acting any differently, forgetting her name, days?”

  The EMT looked to Joe. How would he know? Why was she asking him?

  “She doesn’t remember anything from yesterday morning until now.” He nodded.

  “And you can’t think of anything else that may’ve caused this? No sudden trauma to the head? No alcohol consumption or drug overdose?”

  “Wouldn’t a drug overdose kill me?” I raised my eyebrow.

  “No. She said she just woke up in her bed and couldn’t remember anything.” Joe said to her. How rude. My question was perfectly legitimate.

  “Okay. Well you did the right thing by calling us. We’ll get her in and run some normal tests to see what kind of damage, if any, we’re dealing with.”

  Joe nodded again. He was very thankful to this woman. I was glad she wasn’t talking to me. I guess when it boiled down to it I’d rather just lay here with my thoughts for a little bit than worry. Who knows what is real or not.

  On cue, she turned to me and started asking me questions. Was she a mind reader?

  “Mirabelle Frances. At 509 Wilshire Park. Date of birth?”

  She looked at me and nodded her head to acknowledge she needed me to fill in the blanks.

  “February 29th, 1992.” I whispered.

  I knew that Joe was giving me
that look of complete bewilderment, not for the day I was born on, but the year. I didn’t want to make eye contact with him.

  “Just turned eighteen?”

  The lady made a curious face. It seemed she didn’t pick up the leap year thing either, nor care. Why did no one ever care? I thought it was the only thing in the world that made me special.

  “If you’re counting by the year.” I joked.

  She didn’t say anything. She was writing something down. Maybe that I hadn’t lost my humor...yet. It didn’t matter. I knew the next question that was coming. It was always next.

  “Do you have insurance? Any relatives we should notify?”

  “No and no.”

  I kept my eyes closed. I knew the look on her face. I knew she was going to ask again. She would insist on the importance of it and force me to tell her I had no family.

  “Okay, then we probably won’t give you the CAT scan.” She whispered.

  Well, at least she was dumb. That meant she even had no idea how wealthy I actually was. However, I wasn’t sure that a CAT scan was necessarily necessary. Sure, I'd hurt my head, sure there was memory loss, but I was certain that was nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a little sleep.

  “That’s fine. Is there a cheaper alternative?”

  My eyes were still closed. Joe reached his hand out and grabbed mine.

  “Yes. We’re here.” She said. The ambulance stopped.

  The back doors were opened and I was wheeled out. I didn’t think that was that necessary either. They could be using this ambulance for something much more of an emergency than my memory loss. I should’ve stayed home.

  I was pushed into a hallway where she dropped off the papers to someone else. A new bed was brought to my side and I was asked to switch over. The EMT pushed her empty gurney off.

  I rested my head back and stared up at the ceiling as new nurses rolled me somewhere else. It was awfully plain. I would have thought with so many people having to stare at the ceiling that they would have put some decent effort into spicing it up. Maybe hang some pictures of rainbows and unicorns from the ceiling. Or maybe even have some televisions.

  We stopped next to a desk. Joe reached for my hand again. I wasn’t sure how to take anything. He knew the truth. Maybe while I was at the hospital they could hook us up to some sort of a memory transferring unit and allow me to see what had happened through his eyes.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  He knelt down next to me. He had pretty eyes.

  “Everything that I missed out on. It’s weird to think that nearly two days have gone by, but I don’t remember anything.”

  “I can’t imagine. Do you want me to walk you through everything that I remember?” He consoled.

  “Now?”

  I looked around the waiting room. This didn’t really seem appropriate anymore.

  “It’s as good of a time as any.” He grinned.

  “I suppose. Okay.”

  I rolled on my side and faced him.

  “Okay, well, we bumped into each other on Tuesday morning. You were such a wreck by the way, but I asked you out to lunch. You shot me down a couple times and eventually we agreed on Thursday.

  "But then, on Wednesday, that’s today, I took you out cause your movers never showed up, and I took you to a coffee shop down the road. You ordered green tea with a coffee cake, and I just had the coffee-”

  “Joe, I don’t want to know what we ate or drank, what’d we do? What’d we talk about?” I interrupted him.

  I wanted to make sure I hadn’t done anything to embarrass myself. With him swinging into my window and approaching me the way he did, something had to have happened. He smiled, he was nervous again. Was he ashamed of something?

  “We just talked about each other. You know, got to know one another. It was nice.”

  He was blushing. He had a crush on me. I couldn’t believe it. This beautiful man actually had a crush on plain ol’ me. Oh, how adorable.

  “Did I seem like I was enjoying myself?” I asked sitting up.

  I wanted him to sit next to me. I didn’t want other people to be able to hear us. He made me forget my surroundings, and that could be bad talking about intimate feelings in the middle of an emergency room.

  “I thought so.” He smiled.

  He moved over and sat next to me. I was glad he could read me so well. We held hands again and leaned against the wall waiting for someone to tend to me.

  “I wish I could remember.” I said fidgeting with his hand.

  “Sebastian was jealous. I saw you again at the arcade, where I work. He threw a fit over you asking me out again.” Joe said.

  He really didn’t like this Sebastian character. That wasn’t that important. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of me taking a random guy out to an arcade. I had to know a Sebastian. Think, Mira, think.

  “This just keeps getting stranger and stranger.” I sighed, looking around.

  “Yah. I wish I would have known something was up. I’m so sorry.”

  “You cannot honestly be blaming yourself because you didn’t know that my friend was a total stranger.”

  I wanted to laugh. This guy really liked me.

  “I like you, Mira.” He blurted out, confirming my thoughts.

  His face went bloodshot red. I felt my headache worsen as the blood rushed to my face, as well. I wanted to lean over and wrap my arms around him. I should. There should be nothing keeping me from it. For all anyone else knew, he was my boyfriend. I wouldn’t mind him being my boyfriend. I looked over at him and hugged him.

  “Thank you.” I whispered. He hugged me back. “I have a feeling I really like you, too.” I said when I leaned away.

  He smiled at me and gently ran his hand down the side of my face.

  “I want to kiss you right now, is this okay?” He asked.

  “Kay.”

  I puckered my lips and closed my eyes. He laughed and then leaned forward, kissing me. It was just as sweet as I’d imagine it to be.

  “Ms. Frances?”

  A nurse walked out of the tiny office in the emergency room, interrupting us. I sat up and glared at her. How dare she? She had been waiting on that.

  “We’re going to need you to fill out more paperwork.” She handed me a clipboard.

  How freaking typical. I’ve been sitting here waiting for twenty minutes. I could have been filling out the paperwork then. But nope, they wanted to be as lazy as possible. This was pathetic. I sighed and unclipped the pen and started filling everything out again. When I came to the part about emergency contact, I choked up.

  I was alone. I was completely alone. My head seemed to have forgotten. How could I have forgotten, though? Maybe I did have two days of stuff crammed into my head to force the memory of my mother being gone out of there. A tear fell on the paperwork. I just didn’t know what to do.

  Everything slammed into me all at once. Joe placed his hand on mine. He smiled and took the clipboard from me. I watched him pick up the pen and write in the part that I was struggling with. Did he know? Had I told him about my mother yet? Maybe that was why he was so sweet to me; he pitied me.

  He handed it back and I smiled at him. I looked down and read over his information. I saw that he put his relationship to me as fiancé.

  “Fiancé?” I asked, laughing through my tears.

  He slid off the gurney and then got down on one knee.

  “What are you doing?!” I whispered. Oh, God.

  “Mirabelle Frances.” He yelled.

  Chairs squeaked, people stopped moving, it got silent in an emergency room. Everyone looked at us. He reached for my hand with the most innocent look on his face. I jerked it back and mouthed for him to get back up next to me. He just smiled and took my hand again.

  “Mirabelle, will you marry me?” He asked, even more loudly.

  The whole room sighed. I wanted to die. I couldn’t believe him. What was he thinking?

  “I...I…”

&nb
sp; I just stuttered. I couldn’t form any words. He took off a ring on his left hand and held it just before my ring finger.

  “Go on.” He urged me, playfully and yet sternly.

  “Yes.”

  I glared at him. How could he do that to me like that? Everyone applauded.

  “You like that, huh?” He whispered, rubbing my hair. He kissed the side of my head.

  “No. I hated it. Worst proposal ever.” I teased.

  “It wasn’t that bad, was it?”

  He jumped back up next to me.

  “What made you do that, anyways?”

  People were still staring at us. I wanted to melt away. They were adoring us. They wished they had the love he and I had. Little did they know, we were complete strangers.

  “Credibility. If I had put friend or boyfriend then my level of importance would have shot way down. I wanted to make sure they’d take me seriously.” He whispered.

  “Ah, I see.”

  I was completely over the pain of my mother. I wondered if that’s what had me so attracted to him and what had created our strange connection. I was happy with him around.

  “How do you like your ring?” He asked, kissing my forehead again.

  I stopped writing and held up my left hand, wiggling my ring finger. It was a solid silver ring, nothing fancy about it. No diamond. It looked more like I was wearing his wedding ring.

  “Not bad. Could use some jazz to it.”

  I shook my hand and went back to writing.

  “Hey, that’s my pinky ring! It’s something special to me. Don’t go losing it, now.” He said.

  “It has meaning? Then I guess that makes it better. I promise not to lose it.” I smiled.

  He put his arm around me and laughed. I finished the paperwork, finally, and went up to the desk. The lady nodded and took the sheet. As she read over the first part to make sure I didn’t leave anything out, she asked me to take my seat again. I was a little impatient and annoyed she seemed to keep forgetting about me, so I explained to her that I didn’t have a seat, I was on the gurney in the hall. She jumped up instantly. It seemed the EMT never explained the urgency. I just laughed in my head and took a step back.

  “This way.” She said rushing around from her office.